Discussion: Man Who Fatally Shot Teen Over Loud Music Appeals Murder Conviction

I followed this case daily from start to finish and the dude is not only guilty, but not going to get out of it. Appeal away. He was shooting at the car as they were driving away.

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Iā€™m always amazed that something so standard and routine as a motion for a new trial, which is literally filed (or should be) after every guilty verdict, garners any attention let alone a headline. Theyā€™re always presented as shocking or audacious when they are nothing more than procedural.

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Dunn should assert his original conviction was tainted by the fact the presiding judge was against wanton violence and murder, an obvious bias that hindered his defense. Call it the Trump Doctrine.

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I donā€™t understand. Thatā€™s illegal in Florida?

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I know, I was shocked myself. All he was doing was standing his ground. Or something.

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The most telling part of this case is what he did afterward.

  1. He did not call 911.
  2. He hid at a no-tell motel for the night, while not calling 911
  3. He got up in the morning and drove 150 miles home, while not calling 911
  4. Finally called local police after seeing his face on the news
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The teens were obviously fleeing the scene of a crime and Dunnā€™s gun was in hot pursuit, having been duly deputized because black with loud music.

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If youā€™re white in Florida and black teens play loud music you can ā€œstand your ground.:ā€

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He was just ā€˜standing his ground,ā€™ blazing away at the car while it tried to get away. Did he claim the judge was ā€˜mexicanā€™ too?

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Iā€™m wondering about this reporting, because his claim that he was threatened is an issue of fact, not of law. So if the jury didnā€™t believe him (and apparently it didnā€™t) his lawyer has no leg to stand on. Maybe heā€™s claiming improper instructions to the jury, but good luck.

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APPEAL? For WHAT??? For being white and a sassy black kid talked back to you so you shot him? WTF?

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Attorney Terry Roberts argued for the new trial, saying prosecutors didnā€™t refute Dunnā€™s claim that Davis had threatened to kill him before the shooting.

An attorney should be embarrassed to put forth a claim like this. In effect, he says his client should have a new trial because the jury made a mistake when it failed to believe his defense. Thatā€™s not exactly what one would call ā€œreversible error.ā€

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Michael Dunn wants to appeal his conviction. Iā€™m sure if he could talk, Jordan Davis would tell us that heā€™d like to appeal his murder.

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The appeal actually contained many things like location, etc., but when the appeals attorney presented, he only focused on the fact that the district attorney didnā€™t prove that Dunn was in fact NOT threatened. Since stand your ground (even though this wasnā€™t a stand your ground case I, believe) effectively reverses the burden of proof of self defense (DA has to prove the defendant did not act in self defense if the defense is put forward), judges and lawyers are fumbling around trying to understand who has to prove what when. This was a problem in the Martin case also. The jury was confused. Whether that led to the acquittal, itā€™s hard to know.

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Surprise! Surprise! I guess prison is no fun!

Even less fun is to be murdered by a racist over playing music while Black. Fuck him.

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I believe because of Floridaā€™s ā€œstand your groundā€ law whether he was threatened or not may be a matter of law

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Apparently, the Dunnā€™s still have some assets the lawyers would like to have.

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Well I had decided not to bother posting on TPM due to the lame ā€˜Floriduhā€™ crap that permeates it but I am a Floridian and I live in Jaxā€¦where this went down. Heā€™s appealing the murder conviction and is doing so by making vast changes to his original story. Heā€™ll go nowhere. No shotgun was found and the fact he never mentioned one in the days after the shooting makes it impossible to believe one was seen by him. To be blunt: He killed the kid because he was playing ā€œblack musicā€ then made up the shotgun shit. He was given 5 consecutive sentences for the 56 shots he took at the fleeing care and will be in jail for life on just those charges ( heā€™s not appealing them ) alone.

To the smart ass commenters "is that legal in Floridaā€¦ā€œFloriduhā€ No. We passed a law against murder a couple of weeks ago. Its an appeal. You donā€™t retry a case on appeal. You retry the findings of the case. It is inconceivable heā€™ll get far claiming the kid was coming out of the car with a shotgun when he initially said he saw what he thought was a shotgun through the window of the car. Matters not I guess as there was no shotgun and no one but him saying the kid said he was going to kill him. A kid with no history of such things.

No, the South side of Jacksonville is not a gator infested swamp with millions of places to sink a shotgun. Its nothing but concrete and South-side Blvd, a 6 lane highway. There was no shotgun.

Iā€™m pretty sure they have appealā€™s ā€œup Northā€ and like this one those appeals are often a lame effort by an obviously guilty subject. But as tough as it might be to fathom it is illegal to murder folks in Floriduh. Thatā€™s why Dunn is in jail now.

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To the smart ass commenters "is that legal in Floridaā€¦ā€œFloriduhā€ No. We passed a law against murder a couple of weeks ago.

That doesnā€™t bolster your argument as much as you think it might. Murder has been illegal for centuries most everywhere else.

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